For those keeping score, the DUP is ahead on points  it gave less ground than Sinn Féin. It’s hard to understand why Gerry Adams held things up so long for this outcome that, most observers believe, was available without all this drama. Perhaps, as Naomi Long of Alliance put it, the Sinn Féin President needs a hobby.

For all his huffing and puffing, Adams secured no target date for devolution of justice, and Sinn Féin has no prospect of ever getting the ministry without DUP agreement. Even Peter Robinson’s statement that he wants justice devolved without “undue delay” was not new. The only concession to republican sentiment is that the DUP have stopped demanding guarantees that the IRA Army Council never meets again.